Ericsson shows off 500Mbps broadband

This is just plain cool if it can really be done. Some geniuses at Ericsson have demonstrated a 500Mbps network running over copper.

Now to make this demo even sweater it is not simply an internal network but broadband internet. This runs off of a new standard called VDSL2 (Vectorzised Digital Subscriber Lines).

To accomplish this feat Ericsson bonded six copper lines together over 500 Meters. This smashes the next closest type of connection (Virgin Media's 50Mbps Cable) considering that each of the six lines was pushing an effective 80+ Mbps.

This compares very nicely with the odd 2Mbps that the average UK broadband line painfully achieves. Ericsson bonded six copper lines over a distance of 500m to achieve this record, which means that the effective speed per line was around 83.3Mbps.

ADSL2+ theoretical limit currently stands at 24Mbps and Virgin Media's own 50Mbps cable connection has just been launched. The equipment manufacturer used its own proprietary Crosstalk cancellation technology to reduce the impact of noise from the copper cables.

According to experts, Ericsson's take on VDSL2 will be ideal for fibre extensions and could be used to combine fibre-optical and last-mile copper depending on the environmental circumstances.